Such a description has been utilized by the Catholic Church and can now more clearly be defined from Scripture. As is the case for the Christian, their eventual deliverance from the bondage of sin to be united to God will have been made possible by divine grace and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, for these are the core elements of all human salvation.
People of good will may participate even now in the building of God’s Kingdom, for anyone who seeks to reconcile and bring peace between nations, families or individuals is acting like a child of God482; anyone who contributes to alleviating the plight of the poor and needy will be judged as having succoured Christ Himself483. He who accepts and acknowledges someone righteous as righteous is himself accepted as righteous484. Those who pursue truth and justice for its own sake show themselves to be of the Truth485. Indeed, anyone who desires from the heart to do anything good and acts upon it is demonstrating they will one day adore Jesus Christ, the summit and perfection of all that is good.
The universal benefits of Christ’s faithfulness
To be clear how Jesus Christ’s atonement avails for those outside the Body of Christ it is necessary to understand what Paul was writing in Galatians 2:16, firstly by discerning how it is best translated:
“Having known that a man is not declared righteous by the works of the Law but
through the faithfulness of Christ; we (Christians) believed in Christ Jesus that we might be declared righteous by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of Torah, therefore no flesh shall be declared righteous by works of the law”.
This translation resolves the more usual version’s triple tautology and shows how Christ’s faithfulness in terms of His saving work on humanity’s behalf benefits those who do not have a personal knowledge of it yet instinctively fear God and “attend to moral discipline” as some early Fathers refer to the matter. Countless billions who have lived have not benefitted from hearing a faithful account of Jesus’ teaching and the Good News of His Kingdom. Most Church Fathers before Augustine’s fearsome assertions recognized that man in his natural state, although unable to raise himself to eternal life had effectual free will to choose and practice what is just and in accordance with sound reason486. Likewise, man may equally choose to reject the light of Christ provided to all men and become a godless unbeliever who is devoid of faith. Romans1:17 summarizes what Paul is saying regarding Christ’s faithfulness and human faith:
481 1Cor1:26-27
482 Mt5:9
483 Mt25:40
484 Mt10:41
485 Cf. Jn18:37b
486 e.g. Irenaeus against heresies Book IV chap. 37 para 1
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“For in (the gospel) is revealed the saving justice of God; a justice based on faith
and addressed to faith. As it says in Scripture, “Anyone who is upright through faith will live”487
In the universal sense the object of faith is something innate, which is the inward eye of the spirit488, referenced by the conscience. Jesus described the little children who were brought to Him as “little ones who believe in Me”489 and the context makes it absolutely clear that Jesus is not on this occasion referring to His adult disciples that He also sometimes describes in such a way; nor was He anticipating those infants who would go on to “receive Jesus as their personal Saviour” or become baptized Catholics, for it was an inclusive observation concerning all young children who were placed into His loving embrace490. Their belief in Jesus refers to what is innate to all very young lives – the internal witness of the light of Christ (the Word/Reason – Logos) through Whom their souls were created, guaranteed in their case not (yet) to have been obscured or distorted by the lusts of the flesh or impurities of the mind, which when combined with a growing awareness of transgressing God’s law defiles the conscience and extinguishes Life491.
What the Bible means by righteousness
References in the Old Testament to “uprightness” or people who are “righteous” are not referring to moral perfection but a life of integrity or faithfulness. JHWE’s verdict on His servant King David was that he had walked before Him in “innocence of heart and in honesty”492. That is not moral perfection but purity of heart. Likewise, the New Testament: in the account of Paul’s ministry recorded in Acts, Lydia the purple-dyer493 and numerous other Gentiles were recorded as God-fearing folk before they responded to the gospel. But many Protestant Bible translations such as the New International Version have inserted a comma at Rom1:18 where Paul is talking about God’s retribution being revealed against men “,” who suppress the truth by their wickedness and go on to be sexual perverts (v27), rotten, greedy, malicious, envious, murderous, treacherous, spiteful (v29), libellous, slanderous, God-haters, rude, arrogant, rebellious to parents (v30), brainless, loveless and pitiless (v31). The translators make this out to be Paul’s description of humanity by means of their punctuation494.
The apostle is not here referring to all mankind or all Gentiles but is linking together various Old Testament scriptural texts which highlight a particular group’s wickedness to set out a typically Jewish critique of the pagan world and the inevitable consequence of idolatry. He recognized that many Gentiles, though not possessing the Law, do by nature the things contained in it in response to their conscience495. The context of his tirade against ungodly Gentiles was that those who are righteous live through an underlying faith whereas 487 Rom1:17 New Jerusalem Bible
488 Mt6:22-23
489 Mt18:6
490 Mt19:14
491 “For at one time I was alive without the law, but when the commandment came, sin came to life and I died” - Rom7:9 cf. 1Cor15:56
492 1Kg9:4
493 Acts16:14
494 The Greek text of the Bible contains no punctuation
495 Rom2:14
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the ungodly do not, hence: “We are sure that the judgement of God is in accordance with the truth against those who commit such things”496.
He continues in the next two chapter of Romans to challenge the Jews who would go on to pass judgement on these Gentiles but who behave in a similar way yet take comfort in their heritage. He employs a similar method of critique, linking together passages from Scripture, in these instances where God’s own people are being chastised. In Romans3:10-18 he states that “not one (Jew) is upright, no not one (v10); not one of them does right (v12); their feet are swift to shed blood (v15) and there is no fear of God before their eyes (v18). Did Paul actually believe that no Jew ever feared God or ever did anything right?
Clearly not, likewise with his depiction of the Gentile nations in the previous chapter. It is a literary technique to adduce universal sinfulness, i.e., that all are under the reign of sin497; he is not intimating that it is in everyone’s nature to act in the depraved manner described in these concatenated prophecies. It is those who as individuals suppress the truth God has revealed to them who are to come under condemnation. The fact that references to righteous individuals in the Bible does not indicate perfection, still less “Christ’s personal justice being imputed” can also be demonstrated from verses such as –
“If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it”498
A righteous person as Scripture defines them can fall into sin and spiritually die for it; clearly therefore it is their earlier righteousness that was being referred to499. David, king and psalmist asked JHWE to “judge him as his righteousness and integrity deserve”500. That was his own righteousness: but in Psalm 32, penned after his grievous sin against Uriah to gain his wife Bathsheba, he says “I confessed my offence to JHWE and He took away my guilt and forgave my sin”. For “blessed is the man to whom JHWE does not impute guilt and in whose spirit is no deceit”. God forgave his sin, accepted him as righteous or vindicated him because he made confession of it from a pure heart, although he was punished through the death of Bathsheba’s son which caused him considerable grief.
It is not God imputing His own righteousness to another but His declaration that an individual or group are vindicated and accepted by Him, or in the formulation of the Psalmist God no longer imputes guilt to them for a specific offence. Had David not confessed such a mortal sin, his spirit would have been tainted; his guilt would have remained as would his broken communion with His Lord and the Spirit that he enjoyed as anointed king. Likewise, under the New Covenant forgiveness of a sin that leads to death; mortal sin as opposed to venial sin501 requires the sacrament of reconciliation to restore Life, i.e., fellowship with the divine:
496 Rom2:2
497 Cf. Rom3:9
498 Ezek33:18
499 Also Ezek18:24
500 Ps7:8
501 1Jn5:16
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“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”502